


Share Each Other Like An Island

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3830038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 3x20 - Felicity, Laurel, and Thea talk about lifetimes spent loving Oliver Queen (Olicity, with a little Laurel/Cisco for good measure)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Share Each Other Like An Island

**Share Each Other Like An Island**

Felicity sobs against Laurel’s coat for what feels like hours but might only be a few miserable minutes. She knows how messed up it could potentially be to be sobbing about Oliver Queen on the shoulder of Laurel Lance, but the other woman is nothing but wonderful, comforting her and whispering platitudes in her ear. Between the losses that have rocked both of their worlds this year, she and Laurel have developed a bond that transcends their various relationships with Starling City’s tortured hero, and Felicity’s never been more grateful for a friend than she is right now.

They’re interrupted by the ringing of Laurel’s cell phone and Felicity pulls back shakily, stumbling over her own shoes a little. Lauren gives a confused look to the screen, turning it on Felicity before she answers.

“Hello?”

Felicity can’t hear the words on the other end, but she can make out that the caller is frantic, and female. She puts it together just as Laurel pulls the phone from her ear and whispers.

“It’s Thea,” Laurel tells her, sounding befuddled. “She’s...she’s asking if _Ollie’s_ at my place?”

“She’s um…” Felicity swipes at the tears and mascara underneath her eyes, trying to compose herself enough to work through the next couple things she’s going to have to explain. “She’s a little confused right now. The Pit, it threw her for a bit of a loop.”

“What do you mean?”

“When she came to, she didn’t remember anything,” her voice shakes just a little as she remembers. “She thought Oliver was dead, she thought Moira was still alive. She called Malcolm ‘Dad’.”

“Jesus,” Laurel says on a whisper and when they lock eyes, Felicity understands that she’s feeling the same twisting in her gut that she had felt when Thea had said the words aloud in Nanda Parbat. The stab of pain for Oliver and the way his sister’s words must have affected him.

“Where is she now?”

“At the loft,” Felicity tells her, clenching her teeth to add, “Malcolm’s there with her.”

“Oh hell no,” Laurel says and Felicity is so relieved, because she’d been half-tempted to go over there and drag Thea out herself, but it will most definitely be easier with the Black Canary on her side.

She raises the phone back to ear and says Thea’s name a few times, before adding in a tone that’s soft but definitive, “We’re coming over.”

 

* * *

 

Felicity raises a tired arm to knock when they arrive at the penthouse, but Laurel’s having none of it, grabbing one door knob to turn it. They’re both too slow, however, as the door swings open inward, revealing Malcolm Merlyn on the other side.

“Thea told me you might be stopping by,” he says coolly. “I hope you don’t mind staying with her for a while. I have some errands to run.”

“Picking up that Dad of the Year trophy?” Laurel snarks and Felicity wants to smirk menacingly too, but the movement feels foreign to her tired face muscles.

“Don’t you think…” he starts, and it’s the smug petulant tone of his voice that helps Felicity find her own.

“No!” she snaps, wheeling on him with eyes narrowed to slits and a menacing finger in his face.

“Just because you’re off the hook with Ra’s, don’t you think for one second that there aren’t plenty of people who still know that all of this is your fault,” she keeps her head high and her loud voice strong just up until the end, when it betrays her and breaks. “You’re going to pay for what you’ve done to him, Malcolm. 

“Come on, Felicity,” a gentle voice and hand leads her over to the couch opposite Thea and she’s never been so grateful for Laurel Lance and her ability to read people, because her knees have started to shake again and her face is crumbling under the weight of the thousands of tears she’s already shed today.

She vaguely hears Laurel dismissing Malcolm out the door and dead-bolting it behind her (as if  that can even stop the kinds of danger that comes for them these days), but her gaze is drawn to Thea, who’s laying on the couch, watching the ceiling intently. She thinks it probably says nothing good when the younger Queen’s eyes finally turn on her, and she can see a hint of pity behind the confusion.

“Thea, how are you?” she asks with a weak voice.

“From the looks of it, better than you,” Thea answers and Felicity’s grateful to hear some fire back in her voice, even if it’s at her own expense.

“Touche,” she says, flopping down on the couch.

“So here we all are,” Laurel says, making her way over to the couch and breaking the somewhat-awkward silence. “The great loves of Oliver Queen’s life.”

She’s joking a little, but it doesn’t stop Felicity from feeling a pang of guilt for the extra wrinkle in their situation.

“Laurel, I…” she starts, but is waved off immediately.

“Felicity, please,” Laurel dismisses her casually, but Felicity’s too beaten down to do anything but accept it right now. “Between Ollie and I, our relationship was literally three or four lifetimes ago now. I don’t even really remember what it feels like to love him anymore.”

A silence falls over them as they contemplate the lifetimes they’ve all lived in the last few years 

“Besides,” Laurel continues, “I think we all know I haven’t been his girl for some time now.”

Thea’s gaze is suddenly sharp when it snaps to Felicity.

“He loves you,” the first part’s not a question, but the second part is. “Do you love him?”

“Yes,” Felicity exhales quickly before taking in a shaky breath and continuing almost involuntarily. “At this point, I’m not sure I remember what not loving him feels like.”

All four eyes trained on her soften at her admission and it’s so strangely comforting to be in this company, to be amongst maybe the only other women in the world who truly understand what it’s like to love Oliver Queen.

 

* * *

 

They drink then, because they deserve it, perching on the stools around the island in the kitchen. Laurel sticks to club soda, but Felicity and Thea pop several bottles of wine and one of champagne because, “it’s not every day you come back from the dead.”

It strikes Felicity that Queens seem to have a knack for that. She stares at Thea for long enough that the girl notices and she sort of covers by reading the large hooded sweatshirt that she’s basically swimming in.

“Stanford, huh?" 

“One of Ollie’s,” The younger Queen answers, stretching it out to look down at it. “I don’t think he went there, though? Must have gotten it on a visit or something. Anyways, I like it. It smells like him.”

“Oh,” Felicity breathes, hating herself a little for sounding so damn wistful.

“He’s got a closet full up there,” Thea offers, pointing to the stairs. “You can grab one if you want.”

“No, no, I..I‘m fine,” Felicity counters with just a bit too much force. Then, because she’s desperate for something, anything else to talk about, she turns to Laurel. “Barry said Cisco and Joe were in town?”

“Yeah,” Laurel answers with what’s pretty clearly forced lightness. “They were, uh, looking into a car accident cold case or something. Spent more time with my dad than with me.”

“Barry mentioned that Cisco may or may not know the identity of the Black Canary,” Felicity digs a little deeper, encouraged by Laurel’s adorably awkward discomfort, and remembering Barry’s text message that warned her: _By the way, Cisco’s in love with Laurel now. Says she smiles at him like sunshine._

Laurel laughs then, and Felicity pleasantly surprised at how the sight makes her think Cisco might be right. She doesn’t think she’s seen Laurel smile like that, maybe ever, but definitely not since Sara.

“Yeah, he uh, helped me out with a little project I’m working on,” Laurel answers, unable to wipe the grin from her face. “He’s really something.”

“He is,” Felicity agrees, filing this away, pledging to herself to do something about it when she can, because if there’s a list of people who deserve happiness in this world, she’s sure that Laurel Lance and Cisco Ramon are both on it.

The more they talk, the more relaxed and comfortable they become with each other, close to happy and loopy and loose enough that Felicity nearly forgets the reason that they’re all here together. Until she excuses herself to use the bathroom.

“Upstairs,” Thea points. “Two doors from the left of the stairs.”

When she walks into the room, she doesn’t have time to contemplate if Thea was just confused, or if she deliberately sent her to the wrong door. She can’t mull any of that over because the only thing her five senses are capable of processing is _him_. This is his room. It smells like him, it looks like him, she can nearly taste him on the empty air.

There’s a door to the right of the one she walked through that she thinks might be the master bath, but when she reaches inside and flicks the light on, she gasps aloud, floored by wrong door again.

His suits hang in a row on one side of the walk-in closet, shelves on the other side are littered with t-shirts and sweats. She steps inside hesitantly, feeling in a way like so many different versions of Oliver Queen are surrounding her. Work Oliver, Exercise Oliver, Diligent Big Brother Oliver, and then she spots it. Hung behind his last suits and jackets, shoved at the very end of the row.

The Arrow.

He must have brought the old jacket back here when Cisco gave him the new one. It’s missing the hood, but she’d know those sleeves anywhere, has certainly stared at those biceps more times than was probably professionally necessary. She slides it off the hanger and holds the leather up to her face, breathing him in. Not wanting to muss it too much with her tears, she slips her arms into the sleeves, huffing out a soft breath as he surrounds her.

It’s too big, the sleeves hang past her fingertips in a way that makes her feel five years old, but she also feels safe. If this is the only way for him to hold her right now, she’ll take it.

She takes one last look around the closet, saying goodbye to all the Olivers she’s known before her mind lands, unbidden, on the Oliver she has yet to meet.

_Al Sah-him._

 

* * *

  
 

They find her slumped up against his headboard, arms wrapped around one of his half dozen pillows. She’s still wearing his jacket and, judging by the state of his pillowcase, she’s cried all her makeup off, but she’s absolutely positive of how pitiful she looks when she hears Laurel’s voice. 

“Oh, sweetie,”

“He told me to go, to live my life and be happy,” she whimpers. “He said it like it was possible to do without him.”

Laurel sits next to her against the headboard and Thea flops down on a pillow on her other side.

“I just don’t know what to do now,” she continues, pausing only to hiccup in that horrible shuddery cried-out way. “My work life is going to be just, incredibly complicated, and everything else, every other part of my life is, was, centered around him. What if he never comes back? What am I going to...”

“I told you before, Felicity,” Laurel says then, interrupting her growing panic with the same quiet conviction that Felicity remembers from one horrible day down in the Foundry. “He comes back. You’ve even seen it yourself. You just have to keep believing in him. We all do.”

“I want you guys to tell me what happened to Roy,” Thea announces suddenly and Felicity’s surprised at how even her voice sounds.

“Thea, I don’t know if...”

The younger Queen is looking at her with wide eyes and Felicity finds herself wondering if Oliver ever read her stories when she was little. She looks so innocent, so young, and Felicity doesn’t know if she has the heart to break Thea’s again.

“I remember thinking that he was dead,” Thea starts, staring back off into space. “But for some reason, I’m not sad. I have this feeling that he’s okay, somehow.”

“He is,” Felicity tells her through the lump in her throat. “Or he’s going to be. But he’s gone.”

“Not for long,” Thea says, and she sounds so convinced, that Felicity wants to believe her too.

“No, Thea, you don’t understand,” Felicity tells her brokenly. “He’s gone for good. He can’t come back.”

“I don’t know about that,” Thea says, kind of dreamily, leaning back against the pillows as her eyes flutter closed. It’s for the best, anyway. That particular heartbreak can wait for another day. 

“Wow,” Laurel breathes, looking around at the room. “I mean, Ollie never did like a ton of stuff in his bedroom, but this is kind of sparse.”

“I’ve never seen a bedroom of his that wasn’t the cot in the Foundry,” Felicity admits and she’s not sure why.

“Really?” Laurel asks and to her credit, she sounds genuinely surprised. “You guys never…”

“Just the once,” Felicity couches. “In Nanda Parbat. After I told him.”

“Told him what?”

“I told him how much good he’s done,” she says, and Laurel nods and Thea makes a sleepy sound of agreement and those tiny gestures makes her so grateful that the three of them have survived everything to be here together, because otherwise, she knows she’d be completely broken apart by now. “I told him that leaving him there was going to destroy me.”

Laurel stays quiet, like she knows there’s more.

“And I...I told him that I love him.”

“You’ve never said it?”

This time it’s Laurel looking at her with wide eyes and Felicity thinks she really probably should feel guiltier about this whole thing, for a few different reasons. But Laurel seems to think it so obvious that she’s in love with Oliver, if she’s assumed that for all this time, and they’re still friends...

“No, I never said it back,” the tears are flowing again now, and so are her words, but even as her eyelids grow heavy, she can’t seem to stop. “He’s been telling me for years. The first time, he didn’t really mean it. But then...”

“He meant it, Felicity,” Laurel’s quick to finish. “Believe me, Oliver’s got his fair share of poorly kept secrets, but the worst of all was how much he loved you.”

Her words knock a final sob out of Felicity, and she slumps down the last few inches, pulling the mascara-smeared pillow under her head, snuggling into the smell of him that remains on the sheets..

“Thank you, Laurel.”

Laurel Lance squeezes her shoulder with a murmur of assurance from where she sits propped against the headboard as Felicity dozes off next to Thea Queen, thinking about how there’s a very short list of things in her life that are good right now, but two of them are the other women who know what it’s like to love Oliver Queen.


End file.
